The Helix Assignment [Part 6]

The school was in an uproar.

Flames licked at what remained of the exam hall, burning down steadily. Firemen called for backup while others, including teachers and students, tried to douse the flames by throwing buckets of water.

There were no casualities, unless you count a Mod Maths teacher catching his hair on fire a casuality. He kept gesturing at his burnt hair, all the while yelling and pointing at a white-blond-haired boy who was standing aside, along with five other girls, one of which stood in front of the boy in a protective manner, her dark eyes flashing menacingly.

Perhaps it would be easier if I started at the very beginning....
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It all started with doodling. Yes, you heard me right. Doodling.

Being the genius that he was, Hiroki finished the Add Maths paper in little under half an hour. Bored, he decided to fill his remaining one and a half hours' time by drawing cartoons, depicting a boy (not unlike himself) with pyrokinesis (again, not unlike himself) saving the world with a partner, the ever enigmatic, but manipulative to a certain extent, woman known only as LPK. (Who might that be? U noe, sound a bit like the TV advertisement. LTK eggs, with Omega 3 plus....)

The only difference was that the cartoon alter ego was able to talk.

Hiroki usually didn't mind not talking. It was nice, he reflected absently, to be able to look someone in the eye and stare at them until they got freaked out. But sometimes, his temper usually got the better of him, and he figured that if he was able to talk, he'd be able to voice out his miseries and not have to keep them all inside until he blew the bloody school up---

'OI!'

Mr Amh Arah stepped forward and slammed a rolled-up newspaper on Hiroki's desk, jerking everyone from their thoughts. Hiroki looked at Amh Arah, who was angrily jerking his newspaper baton at Hiroki's scrap paper, which was given to each student to do their calculations. The paper was filled with drawings of all kinds.

'Boy! This is an exam standard paper! You're not supposed to doodle on it!" Amh Arah thundered.

'Ya, ya,' K. Wang chirped in, diverting everyone's attention to her. 'Exam paper cannot conteng!' she said, reverting back to her native language in her excitement. 'This is called "tidak bertanggungjawab". You don't have a good sense of moral. You tidak menunaikan janji!'

Pissed off, Hiro glared at K. Wang, some trace of his fire power reflected in his menacing eyes. K. Wang gulped and turned back to her Cosmopolitan magazine.

'I said you cannot scribble on the paper!' Amh Arah said yet again, as Pierce came to Hiroki's rescue. 'Technically, sir, he wasn't scribbling,' she said soothingly, as she focused on her telempathic abilities. 'Besides, sir, it's scrap paper. We're allowed to use it for calculations, or even--' she shot Hiro a glance. 'Doodling.'

Thanks to Pierce, Amh Arah started calming down, but he just had to feign anger to have the last word. 'If I catch you again, I'll give you F straight away!' He stalked off, muttering, 'Idiot.'

And that's when Hiro cracked. With a snarl of undisguised anger, fire shot out from his fingertips, igniting Amh Arah's hair. Styled in an afro around his head, Amh Arah's crowning glory became an instant beacon of light. The fire surrounding him kinda of make him look like a demented angel, Joye thought as she grinned from her seat.

'AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!'

One could almost imagine how freaked out Amh Arah was. Well, technically, they didn't have to imagine. Nope, they could see it all over his face, which was turning as red as a tomato.

But Hiroki wasn't finished.

Another snarl, and fire shot out again, scorching the back of K. Wang's skirt as it became her turn to scream running around the exam hall. A third burst of fire burnt the tables, and the curtains went up in flames.

Yeah, well, that's how chaos happened.

'Shit!' Elsa cried as a burning beam broke from its place on the wall. Joye immediately dived under it, bracing herself to catch the weight of the beam on her shoulders as Aqua hastened to put the fire out with jets of water. Jen stood frozen to the floor in shock as the students found out their true identity.

'Oh my god!'

'They have powers!'

'What are they?'

Joye licked her lips. They felt dry and raw. 'What do we do now?' she asked, instinctively turning to Elsa, who was the unofficial leader. Elsa shook her head, looking at the way her classmates stared at her. 'I don't know.'

Aqua took a deep breath. 'Oh, hell.'
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Pierce couldn't breath. Everything was just too much for her to handle. And Hiro was firing everything flammable....literally. She licked her lips. The air tasted dry and stale as Aqua pulled extra moisture in the air to douse the flames as Hiro started another fire. Elsa was flying everyone she could--who did not protest---to safety.

In the end she knew it was up to her to help Hiro. As he generated another fireball, she held her hand and force the fire power away with a stare. He glanced at her with a harsh look of questioning in his eyes, as if daring her to stop him. Oh, she dare.

Pierce's blue eyes flashed as she neared Hiro, immobilizing him by her telempathy. In his mind's eye, he was tied down by ropes, pinning his arms to his sides, not allowing him to move. She watched as Hiro succumbed under her power, trying to move his arms but was unsuccessful. Finally she was close enough to lay a hand on his face. This she did, staring deep into his eyes. She saw anger and fear, along with a hint of uncertainty, as though he was trapped in a nightmare he couldn't get out from.

'Time for a little serenity,' she said quietly, a psi bolt forming in the middle of her forehead and shooting into Hiro's. Within moments his expression cleared, and the harsh energy that had previously taken hold of him began to fade. He smiled uncertainly at her. 'Pierce?' he signed.

Pierce smiled back. 'Good boy,' she whispered, ruffling his hair.

'Nice to see the reunion,' Jen noted. 'But what do we do about that?' "That" referring to the destruction Hiro had caused. At least he'd had the dencency to look guilty.

Relaxed, knowing that Hiro was fine, Pierce couldn't resist a grin. 'Leave it to me.' Her eyes turned black slowly as she spoke. 'You might want to hold on to Elsa,' she said. 'With what I'm broadcasting, you don't want to miss it.'

She spoke just in the nick of time as Elsa hurriedly locked everyone in a telepathic link, simultaneously linking herself to Pierce who started telempathically touching the minds of everyone around her, searching for any memory of Hiro's display of powers, and wiping them clean.

Pierce continued this process until she touched Amh Arah's mind, planting a new memory inside his head, a memory of him throwing a lit cigarrette away, which dropped onto a curtain and immediately caught fire. So fast you'd think someone had doused it in lighter fuel, Hiro thought. Amh Arah was standing so close to the curtain that his head caught fire while the flames spread.

Moments later, the mind-erasing stopped. Aqua caught Pierce's amusement. 'Just in case someone comes checking,' she deducted correctly.
'Now it's done,' Jen asked shakily. 'Can we get the hell outta here?'

'Right on time, as usual,' Joye commented as several loud wails sounded. The firefighters and paramedics were coming. Hiro grinned. 'Maybe we should give them something to earn their keep?' he signed by way of suggestion, Pierce acting as translator. Elsa sighed. 'Only if you keep it small.'

Hiro gave her a grave salute, and allowed a small flame to touch the curtains, which burst into flames. As they left the premises, Elsa asked aloud, looking at Pierce, who had an idea of what the question was and had turned away. 'So, was that what you did to me last time?'
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Several miles away, a TV set was broadcasting the news about an examination hall catching fire due to carelessness. Exams would be continued next week after repairs were made. The anchor continued by saying that seven students who were caught in the midst of the fire had suffered no injuries as the camera panned to the students.

Here, he paused the screen, and picked up his glass. It was full of daiquiri, and he took a sip, revelling in the taste of the alcohol as he looked at the picture of the students. Six girls and a guy, but his attention was directed to the auburn-haired girl, who was standing to one side, far enough to kept the attention away from her, but close enough to keep vigil on her friends.

With a smile, Edmund Sinclair raised his glass in a salute, and smiled. 'Clever girl.'

The Helix Assignment [Part 5]

The fourth day of exams were as bad as the first, if not worse.

While normal students were busy revising for the next tests (Add Maths, Advanced Compositions, Moral and Civics---the last two very, very useless subjects), six members of this particular class was unusually tense.

And it have nothing whatsoever to do with exams.

'Jen Lophat is a mutant?' Aghast, her voice dropped to a hiss at the last word.

Elsa was irritable. 'Yes, Aqua. She's a mutant. She's a mutant. She's a mutant. do I need to buy a tape recorder and record "She's a mutant" so you can play it again and again until it enters your thick skull?'

Joye's face was scrunched into a mask of worry as Aqua scowled. 'Does she know about us?'

'Now, yes,' Elsa winced. 'I felt compelled to invite her to join us. Open invitation. C'mon,' she added hastily, noting the looks on her friends' faces. 'I mean, she has X-Ray vision! How cool can that be?'

Yet another look was fixed firmly onto her face. Elsa sighed dramatically. 'One more thing. I have a feeling there's something wrong about Pierce.'

'What about now?' Aqua asked sarcastically. 'What, she has powers too?'

'I don't know,' Elsa confessed. 'I have a feeling she's one of us as well. But I'm all for inviting her in. You know what they say, keep your friends close, and your enemy closer.'

Joye looked skeptical. 'Oh, so now she's an enemy? And who's they?'

'Maybe not,' Aqua interjected quietly. 'But Elsa's right. She may be one of us, but I vote for keeping her. She may be a friend, fine. I just don't want her as an enemy.'
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Hiroki looked up as Pierce knocked on his table. 'I did it, Hiro.' Her voice was full of excitement. 'They've asked me to join them. Of course, I may have helped a little in that area...' her voice trailed off as she smiled knowingly.

The white haired boy shook his head in helplessness, and started signing away rapidly. Pierce allowed him to rant, or rather, sign his rant before she continued. 'I know. I know. You think I'm getting way over my head for this, aren't you?' Hiroki nodded solemnly, before signing again. Pierce's eyes widened as she mouthed what he'd signed. '"You are very reckless and have a devil-may-care attitude which, frankly, I'm quite tired of!"' Hiroki shrugged at her indignance.

Pierce scowled. 'Well, I don't know about the Devil, Hiro, but I sure as hell DON'T BLOODY CARE!' She paced the room. 'I've been working so long on this, I can't just give it up. Naturally, I don't expect you to understand.' She lowered her voice, and Hiroki patted her shoulder sympathetically. Within seconds, her smile lit up again as she got a hit. 'Oh, yeah,' she muttered.

Hiroki raised an eyebrow. Pierce grinned at him. 'Guess what? The teachers are having another meeting.'
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'And the thing is, half the class doesn't listen to me.' Mr Amh Arah bemoaned. 'Everyone's either sleeping or talking away. I don't like this class.'

Miss K. Wang, the Moral teacher, scoffed. 'You think zat is bad? Hwah, these people ah...have no manners....no respect....In my country, we call them to "tidak menunaikan janji". Hah! Even Jelami also like dat!'

Mrs Dory, the Advanced Compositions teacher, frowned in puzzlement. 'Who is Jelami?' She leaned to her side to Mrs Chimes, the Add Maths teacher. 'Do you know who is Jelami?'

Mrs Chimes shrugged. 'I only know Jeremy, not Jelami.'

'Ah! YES, YES, it is Jelami I talking about,' K. Wang pointed at Dory and Chimes, who exchanged exasperated looks. Sometimes K. Wang's accent was too thick to understand.

'Wang is right,' Mr Caroll Morton spoke up. A tall balding man in his late fifties, he was heartily disliked by his class. 'The boys and girls'---see the condescending tone he uses? "Boys and girls." Come on man, they're SEVENTEEN---'are very naughty and dislike to pay attention in class.'

'Yes, I agree,' Madelina the biology teacher said. 'I was telling them about the WONDERFUL chromosomes in us and you know what they do? They sleep in the lab!'

'Gee, I wonder,' Mrs Chimes muttered, having a big feeling that if anyone was subject to Madelina's "Wonderful" chromosomes, they deserved to be shot. Immediately. Or shoot Madelina. Take your pick.

Man, what with Madelina's Wonderful Chromosomes, Amh Arah's talking crap all over, and K. Wang's "Jelami", it was going to be a long day. Dory and Chimes exchanged looks again, and comtemplating killing themselves for coming to this meeting.

Suicide was nothing compared to this.

The Helix Assignment [Part 4]

Jennifer Lophat glanced around her. The classroom was totally silent, which was making her more nervous than usual. The reason? It was Doomsday, the period of time Man called Armageddon. The day where good and evil fight in an everlasting battle called Ragnarok, the coming of the Apocalypse, the end of the world................

Well actually, it's the day of the Chemistry test. Easy peasy, you think, Jeni thought to herself darkly. Yeah, right. She'd failed it once before, and she'd taken it hard then. This time, she was determined not to fail again.

Which was quite a deal for her considering she understood close to nil about electrochemistry. She read the first structural question.

1. In the electrolysis of aqueous copper (II) sulphate (Cu2SO4) solution with copper plates, state what will happen at the anode and cathode.

How the hell did she know? She wasn't a bloody scientist. She knew that it might have something to do with metal deposited somewhere. Jen searched the classroom. In front of her, Lauren Knight (Pierce) scribbled away calmly. It was pretty obvious that she studied. Even if she didn't, she'd probably manage to crap out reasonable answers that would get her marks. She was British. Good English? CHECK.

Next to Pierce, Hiroki Shinosuke, the mute Japanese boy, scratched his white (well, actually, albino) hair with his pencil. Jen thought he was having problems too, but he was merely breaking down the equation in his head before writing them out. Jen let out a silent groan. God help her.

Jen skipped the first question and went to question two, letting out another small groan.

2. In the electrolysis of aqueous sodium sulphate solution (Na2SO4), with carbon electrodes, what is discharged at the anode and cathode? State your reasonings.

She snuck another look. In front of Pierce and Hiroki, Joye was frowning. [P.S. Yes I know I put Joye in as a freshman, and Aqua as a sophomore, but for technical reasons I've decided to stick them all in one class ok? It makes my life easier.] She had studied the chapter on electrochemistry but she wasn't sure if she'd made any mistakes or not.

Aqua, on the other hand, was resting her head on her arms as though she was asleep. Wait a minute, Jen leaned in closer. She was asleep. What the hell?

Time to give it a shot, Jen finally decided. Focusing on her power, her X-Ray eyes zoomed in until she was looking past Pierce's skeletal body and onto her test paper. With delight she noticed that Pierce had the answer to the first structural question.

Ans: The copper plate at the anode will dissolve to form the cations of the salt. Hence, the mass of the anode decreases and the anode becomes thinner during electrolysis. The copper plate at the cathode accept electrons to form metal. Hence the copper plate at the cathode becomes thicker.

With a grin, Jen copied the answer. Man, life rocked!
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On the other side of the class, Elsa struggled with the chemistry test as well. Oh, bugger, she thought sullenly. She would have to be extremely lucky to ace this test. Or, she smirked to herself, extremely talented.

Emphasis on "talented".

Closing her eyes, Elsa concentrated on her telepathy powers. Her mind touched Mr. Amh Arah, the supervising teacher's mind, albeit briefly, and she was eeriely disgusted to learn that her teacher was thinking about something she'd rather not know about. Pulling her face, Elsa turned direction.

Her mind floated around, tapping into Hiroki's, easily the smartest person in class. It took her three seconds before she pulled out. Hiro's mind was full of mathematic solutions she couldn't possibly begin to decipher even if she had an eternity.

She then turned to someone else. Pierce was the next best choice. Despite that however, Elsa hesitated, remembering the shock that ran through her body last time. She didn't know how it happened but she suspected there was something wrong with Pierce.

At that moment, Mr. Amh Arah looked at his watch and spoke. 'Twenty minutes left.' Shit, Elsa cursed. She had to do it. She closed her eyes and broadened her mind, touching Pierce's consciousness.

Hello, Elsa.

It was lucky for Elsa that she was sitting so far away from the teacher. She'd almost gasped out loud, but thankfully Amh Arah didn't notice. Her classmates around her did, though, and they were giving her weird looks. Trying to cover it up, she gave a deliberate cough, and turned back to her paper.

Nice to see I haven't lost my touch, Elsa. Pierce spoke again.

Elsa's eyes swung around wildly until they locked with Pierce's steely blue ones. She gave an acknowledging nod, a hint of a smile on her lips.

What are you? Elsa shot back. Pierce looked up with concealed amusement. I feel so insulted. You're smart enough. I'd thought you'd hit on it already. Another wicked smile. Or would you like another reminder?

She hadn't finished her sentence when another electric shock ran through Elsa's body. Pierce, she gritted her teeth. If not for this test, I would get up and kill you right now.

You're quite welcome to try, was the reply. Now do the test and stop CHEATING!

The last word vibrated in Elsa's mind, until Pierce's eyes turned black, and she wiped Elsa's mind from their previous conversation. It wasn't neccesary, but it amused her. She gave another wicked smile and finished her paper, quite aware that Jen Lophat was copying her answers. Maybe she'd be next.
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Elsa shook her head, trying to figure out what happened. Unknowingly, she did a mind sweep, and stopped short in alarm.

Jen Lophat was a mutant! Horrified, Elsa snuck a look. There she was, writing steadily, with a gaze that bored through Pierce's back.

Literally, Elsa discovered in shock.

My oh my, Pierce smiled enigmatically. What happens next?